French consumer protection agency DGCCRF has fined Global Service Concierge and its parent company WSI Live SA, €150,000 for misleading resale practices.
The investigations, carried out by its National Investigation Department, revealed that the two companies, which operate ticket resale platforms live-booker.fr and next-concert.com, were tricking consumers into believing that they were offering resale tickets with the authorisation of the promoters, whereas no authorisation was obtained. In France, it is illegal for tickets to be resold without the authorisation of the promoter under Article 313-6-2 of the French Criminal Code.
The news continues a pattern of Global Services Concierge’s malpractice in secondary ticketing, after the company was ordered to compensate PRODISS €100,000 for infringing French anti-scalping legislation in November 2020. The judgment expressly prohibited the company from offering resale services that sell tickets without promoter authorisation.
The sanctions against Global Services Concierge are an important moment in the fight against ticket scalpers and demonstrate the impact appropriate legal regulation can have on the uncapped secondary market.